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18 February 2018

Here's how it works: The Recent Releases chart brings together critical reaction to new albums from more than 50 sources worldwide. It's updated daily. Albums qualify with 5 reviews, and drop out after 6 weeks into the longer timespan charts.

10.0 |
NOW

10.0 |
A.V. Club

Lamar trusts every idea to stand on its own. When you’re making art this substantial, vital, and virtuosic, there’s no need to wrap a tidy bow around it
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10.095089

10.0 |
State

We need nothing more than these 14 tracks to solidify that Kendrick Lamar is the best rapper of our generation
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10.095143

10.0 |
Tiny Mix Tapes

Three months in, DAMN. feels like our first Trump-era classic. It’s as bold and as hard and as hopeful as it is bursting with vitriol. It’s as distracting as it is inciting. It’s as cohesive as it is dense
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10.095234

10.0 |
Evening Standard

The era-defining rapper follows up his last masterpiece with another deep listen
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10.095269

10.0 |
The Observer

More than drugs, crime or gynaecology, greatness is arguably the meta-theme of all hip-hop, and Lamar both tells and shows his pre-eminence
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10.0 |
DIY

10.0 |
Q

Its tracks are taut yet complex, full of thrilling twists and details. Print edition only

10.095727

10.0 |
The Quietus

DAMN. is the sound of a man who knows he's working in rarefied territory
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9.595182

9.5 |
The 405

This is Kendrick Lamar playing the game, and making everything else look dangerously irrelevant while he's at it. Be afraid
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9.295087

9.2 |
Pitchfork

A widescreen masterpiece of rap, full of expensive beats, furious rhymes, and peerless storytelling about Kendrick’s destiny in America
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9.195069

9.1 |
Paste Magazine

With DAMN., Kendrick Lamar plays by the rules and then sets the rule book on fire, and continues one of the most impressive run of albums of any artist in recent memory
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9.195124

9.1 |
Consequence Of Sound

DAMN. is an album with no resolution, driven by what might be the boldest statement Kendrick Lamar has ever made
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9.095125

9.0 |
Loud And Quiet

Lamar spent three albums building a legend status, just to show that he’s as fragile as the rest of us – or maybe it just takes someone praying for you. I’m not religious but ‘DAMN.’ is divine like little else
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9.095134

9.0 |
All Music

n a way DAMN. is just as lavish and singular as the preceding albums, its quantity and weight of thoughts and connected concepts condensed into a considerably tighter space
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9.095172

9.0 |
Crack

In spite of his faith, Kendrick Lamar is a flawed human being. DAMN. is his way of showing it
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9.095077

9.0 |
Slant Magazine

The specter of violent death becomes a narrative device that wraps its arms around the whole album
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9.096283

9.0 |
Punk News

DAMN. isn’t the same kind of masterpiece that To Pimp a Butterfly is, but it’s a masterpiece nonetheless
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9.095122

9.0 |
Rolling Stone

Much like the recent A Tribe Called Quest record, Damn. is a brilliant combination of the timeless and the modern, the old school and the next-level
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9.095283

9.0 |
Clash

After ‘DAMN.’ he finds himself beginning to creep into the conversation about the greatest of all time
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9.095205

9.0 |
PopMatters

The title is our reaction to his verbal gymnastics, his brazenness. And it’s a question: are we damned?
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9.095319

9.0 |
Drowned In Sound

This is an artist in his absolute prime: artistically, lyrically and musically
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8.995135

8.9 |
Gig Soup

Although Good Kid, M.A.A.D City and To Pimp a Butterfly set Kendrick up as a sharp, sincere storyteller, it wasn’t until DAMN. that we were able to hear what happens when the lens was turned fully inward and onto himself
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8.895333

8.8 |
Earbuddy

If Kendrick Lamar on autopilot can make an album as involving and charming as DAMN., I anticipate being a fan of his for a very long time
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8.595111

8.5 |
Spectrum Culture

Like our new day-to-day reality, DAMN. is full of fear, confusion and dismay at the world around us
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8.295070

8.2 |
Sputnik Music (staff)

DAMN. remedies a lot of its predecessor's mistakes and gives us something better – a Kendrick not seen since Section.80, throwing tonally and stylistically inconsistent songs together in a desperate scramble to tell us just what the fuck he's feeling
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